Posted on 01/05/2008 9:05:25 AM PST by pissant
Manchester (NH): Fred Thompson spent most of caucus night in Iowa hovering between third and fourth place -- a far cry from the lofty first-place position he held in Rasmussen's poll of likely Republican caucus-goers last June. It has been a long time since Thompson has made a compelling reason to be in this race. And it should be a very short time before he confesses a compelling reason to exit stage right. A bystander in his own race, Thompson's political what-could-have-been slipped through his fingers long before he announced his candidacy. “The process for running for president has begun so early,” says GOP political strategist Charlie Gerow, “that if you are not in the game, you are not in the game … and Fred Thompson was never in the game.” Larry Sabato, who directs the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, says “the biggest loser of 2008 is already known: Fred Thompson. The biggest pre-candidacy buildup since Ted Kennedy in the 1980 cycle has led to the same result -- a failure to come close to fulfilling his high expectations.” The short story of Fred Thompson started just about a year ago at the conservative love-fest known as the Conservative Political Action Convention, or CPAC. There, hints of a Thompson hat-toss began. By late spring, he was all the rage. He hit his high note with a clever video smacking down docudrama king Michael Moore. Suddenly, the political and media worlds could not get enough of Fred. It was his shining moment -- except that Fred forgot to shine. Summer came and went. So did a whole lot of staff and a whole lot of opportunities.
His eventual announcement in September came with a hefty price tag -- the Republican Primary voters in New Hampshire. He chose to announce on Jay Leno’s show, bypassing the first New Hampshire debate the same evening.
“He was an attractive idea, an image, and the reality couldn’t match it,” Sabato says. “This may be the fate of anyone touted as the next Reagan. Reagan is no longer a man. He’s a myth. No living human being can fulfill those expectations.”
“My opinion of what happened to Fred Thompson is that he turned out to be ... Fred Thompson,” adds Matt Lebo, political science professor at New York’s Stony Brook University.
“I don't think it’s just his late entry -- that is just a symptom of the problem,” Lebo says. “The problem is that he has never shown a willingness to fight for conservative causes. Believing in those causes isn't enough. There should be some evidence that you are willing to do something about it.”
While comparisons have been made to the failed 2004 campaign of Wesley Clark, those may not be fair. Clark was a political novice; Thompson is not.
So why did Thompson go wrong?
“I think he was expecting to ride in, pick up the bouquet, and that would be that,” says Bert A. Rockman, head of the political science department at Purdue University. “It doesn’t work that way.
“People confuse appearance with reality. Thompson played hard-as-nails authority figures on TV and in the movies. But his campaign had no distinctiveness, no comparative advantage.”
Somehow, someone must have convinced Thompson that times had changed and he could run a different kind of campaign, one that suited his low-key approach to politics. A campaign sans rubber-chicken dinners, moldy bus tours and all the other degrading aspects of running for president.
Tack on the misconceptions that tens of millions of dollars were waiting for him, that he could easily round up organizational support -- and that pretty much sums up why the promise of Fred never happened.
As the country shifts its gaze toward New Hampshire, Thompson stands to fare even worse here than he did in Iowa. As of Friday morning, he was polling sixth among likely Republican voters.
So, the near-term question for Fred Thompson isn't if he drops out of the race but when.
The baby, not Fred!
The media players will do all they can to try to control the ‘race’ by printing what they want about who they want. As usual, they don’t know the ‘voters’, the red states, the flyover country as they call us. :) It aint over yet.
Fred is not a career politician.
Only career politicians NEED a job.
Fred will get the nod...
Typical pissant logic!
Gone are the days when the VP is a silent partner.
That is my biggest worry about Fred. He chaired the committee to investigate the Clinton/China funny money, and allowed the investigation to be turned into an investigation into Haley Barbour and the Republicans (the only part of the investigation to be covered live by CNN!) He allowed himself to be rolled, and didn't seem to mind at all.
Meanwhile, McCain was covering Clinton's and the Chinese's flank with his "This is all about the need for more laws" campaign.
That is factually incorrect.
Hunter to endorse McCain? What a joke! Amnesty McCain being endorsed by Hunter... I’ll believe it when I see it.
this guy was a huge DNC contributor while at U. of Pittsburgh , last contibutions '00,probably about time Internet listings got going, according to Newsmeat. Why does Zito make him go to guy on Conservative website?
You know, back when Huckabee was a second-tier no-hoper, I considered myself a nominal supporter of his. I didn’t think he had the slightest chance of winning, but my view was that it was too early to start strategizing and compromising and I might as well stick with a guy I really liked for as long as he was around.
About the time the “Huckaboom” took off, I wised up. Got off the Huck bandwagon at the same time a great many of my compatriots got on.
Anyway, the point is that I could actually see myself joining the Hunter camp with the same mindset I used to have as a Huck guy. But the bull-headed, fanaticism-tinged detachment from reality of his supporters turns me off.
Fred IS winning over Reagan Democrats, as we speak, including some diehard rats in my own family.
I know plenty of Reagan Democrats that are going to vote for Huckabee. Fred is not getting much support in his college town. I have decided to wimp out in the primaries. Not voting.
I think Hunter is great. I am hoping we will end up with a Thompson/Hunter ticket.
Eight years of that, then the country will know and love Hunter, then eight years of him as President.
Sixteen years of true conservatives might be enough to turn this place back into what the Founding Fathers intended it to be.
Either that or we will end up with Hitlery and Hussein. And that is the end of our Roman empire.
This campaign season has been mild. Mostly ‘cause the Rudy folks are largely gone, I assume
There are only two acceptable candidates in the race, and you can think of nothing better to do than work nonstop to try to drive one of them out?
I haven’t noticed Fred’s supporters spending a lot of time attacking Duncan Hunter.
This is extremely stupid and counterproductive. With a bunch of liberal idiots running for the Republican nomination, you have to keep attacking the only other conservative in the race? How about spending a little time supporting your candidate, instead? Or going after the big three liberals?
How do these constant anti-Fred posts help your man Duncan Hunter?
Why not keep your eye on the ball? Let’s focus on what’s wrong with the RINOs, squishes, and sellouts in the race? Right now the only candidate likely to overcome Slick-Mitt and the Huckster is Fred. For all the reasons you and I support Duncan, we should be focusing on the disaster for our country if either one of them is our nominee.
True. Reagan wasn't a career politician and he had "fire in his belly."
And to be honest with you, we are going to need a fighter in the WH to get the jackasses in the Congress to do anything. Lower taxes, build the wall...
And the point is -- Fred said that! Why would any of us vote for someone who is going to be a lame duck POTUS?
Are you deliberately lying or just completely ignorant?
Thompson NEVER said any such thing.
Fairly late in the evening, McCain was in third by, IIRC, a hundred or two hundred votes. It lasted for about twenty minutes then reverted back.
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